NEW YORK: Fire gutted at least 20 Bangladeshi shops at Jackson Heights Building.    

Thousands of Bangladeshi Americans live in the Jackson Heights and 74 Street has most of the Bangladeshi grocery stores and clothing stores there.        

The fire broke out at a Queens commercial building in Jackson Heights of New York on Tuesday.

Fire caught the four-story office building at 5:30pm on Monday local time at 74-09 37th Avenue. Twenty Fire fighting units are on effort to extinguish the flame.   

For about two hours, flames and dark, thick smoke poured from the building’s third and fourth floors, which appear to have been gutted by the blaze.

While the color of the smoke began to lighten around 8:00pm, the Fire Department 10:30 p.m. that the fire was still not under control. It reached five alarms just before 10:00pm, officials said.   

Witnesses said the fire started on the third floor and then climbed to the fourth.

“We actually thought it was an accident. It sounded like two cars that hit, and like the glasses had popped,” Anna, who had a bird’s-eye view of the fire and called 911, told. “So we just opened the window and looked down.”      

It was unclear Monday night what caused the fire.

** Fire at Jackson Heights’ building

BDST: 1400 HRS, APR 22, 2014